West Somerset Railway General Discussion

May I suggest that is precisely why it hasn't happened? It really seems that the thing that the WSR wants to preserve most is not a steam railway, but the egos of certain people involved with it, and that, even though it's not an unusual one, is still not a good impression to give.

 

Indeed. In fact, all the more remarkable perhaps because the fund-raising was done - not by the main L&BR body - but by one of the 'other groups' associated with the line. Admittedly the ink is not yet on the contract for sale, but hopefully will be in due course Perhaps the L&BR is fortunate that its management, members and supporters all share roughly the same vision and continue to work towards that in a positive way.

 

Strange that it states 4561 is a smaller locomotive and therefore ideally suited to the WSR.

I’d always thought 4561 was considered too small for the trains the WSR normally runs. Hence the fairly recent proposal to swap it with 3803 from the SDR.

 

I was about to post something very similar but it would have been far less eloquent.

Every week seems to reveal a further reason why the WSR has not or cannot restart, yet all we hear officially is that it would probably incur losses it can't afford by restarting and it's best to wait a while.

This now seems simplistic at best.

But even if true, it avoids the elephant in the room. Few preserved lines survive through fares alone and rely on other income and grants. Well surely if the railway isn't running then these are far less likely to be coming in, so the longer the line is closed, the worse the situation will become.

This alone should cast doubts on the reasoning behind staying shut, regardless of the other drops of information which keep leaking out.

 

Not acceptable behaviour now of course, but to think that when heritage railways first started that was pretty much just what they did (And if they hadn't, then we probably wouldn't have the rich and varied heritage railway movement that we have now).

 

For those of us who don't have access to this magazine could you give us a flavour of what appeared in the report? In who's direction was it biased?

 

I think it pretty much just took its cues from the now deleted Plc press release. I haven't read it either but seen a couple of comments about it.

 

I'm in no way involved with the WSR so I don't know anything certain about the railway other than what I see with my own eyes on occasional visits. However, in playing trains, I get to speak to quite a few people who are major players in our movement and discussions will cover a wide range of subjects, usually topical ones. I treat all this as confidential and I would be foolish to do otherwise on a forum such as this. Often the information is third hand but its source is pretty robust. It is not simply lineside gossip. What I put in my earlier post is my interpretation alone of the situation but I don't think anyone will come on here and say I am totally wrong. In fact, I've had a more recent conversation with someone closer to the railway who said that I'm probably right.

I can't answer that one. I'm sure that the heritage railway movement would happily pull together to help the WSR climb out of its hole but it needs to be asked and probably a lot of humble pie eaten.

 

Well as far as I remember - documentation, including the SMS, formed a large part of the remedial work required during the last ORR 'advised' shutdown. From previous experience, and paperwork being a lot easier to check than things like 20 miles of track condition, I would assume that the documentation would have had to be corrected to the ORR satisfaction prior to reopening whilst physical improvements (apart from the emergency ones) would have be 'in progress' with agreed completion criteria before reopening was allowed. Therefore I can't see the updated SMS either being overtaken by operational necessities or becoming worryingly disregarded by the staff in such short space of time, especially with the ORR keeping an overview of the progress and making repeat visits to check. so I think this 'ORR Secure' SMS suggestion is a hare that not only won't run, it's actually been shot. (What's the difference between a normal SMS and an 'ORR Secure' SMS anyway?)

Why is no one sitting down planning the way forward? I hate to suggest it but perhaps they have planned and perhaps the railway is heading in exactly the direction some people want? That way the longer they delay anyone trying to form a 'rescue' package the closer the railway gets to their goals. Could people be so self centred that they'd allow it to fail just to make a personal profit? I'm afraid to say yes, there are people like that who care nothing for anyone or anything else other than their own personal greed.

I'm sure you will never get an overall consensus within all the groups on the railway of what is 'right'. Well, not at the start anyway. I needs someone to bite the bullet and take charge - with the backing of the majority - and with a lot of consideration to the opposers still drive the railway forward. Once this can be seen to be happening for the benefit of all then I'm sure a lot of the opposition would fall away. (But then you'd never stop some people complaining...)

 

As Michael was a prime mover along with Frank Courtney in the removal of the six I don't know on what basis you can say "I'm not sure why you see their removal as a bad thing" and having achieved it he stepped down. That in my opinion was a masterstroke and something that saved the WSRA! So why on earth would you think Michael now regretted taking that action?

For those of us who attended the first plc meeting at which the precarious future of the company was discussed at length and who observed Paul Whitehouse's body language deduced immediately that he was far from comfortable with developments. As a result it was no surprise to me at all that he decided to go!

Of course the moderators should be able to express their own opinions and although I have some sympathy with those opinions I do believe they go too far

It is Imperative that the Board Concentrates on the issues that face the Reopening of the Railway and I hope they are not Distracted by what is written here! They need to formulate a plan of what they need to do and present it to the AGM of the company and open it up for discussion there.

As has been said many times THE PRESENT BOARD love em or hate em are THE ONLY SHOW IN TOWN!!

 

@ghost I see @Maunsell907 has edited his post since to make it clear he was referring to the removal of Rodney Greenway and Frank Courtney, rather than the X6. I must admit in between the X6 going and JJP coming on scene I did rather lose track of what was going on on the WSR. It was much more difficult to follow, there were only snippets and half stories. It would have been most helpful if the goodies had worn white hats and the baddies black hats for us mere observers.

@Triumph 2500S I think you need to edit your post, the quotes contained within have got incredibly messy. I suspect you're missing a [ or ] somewhere, but I've no idea where!

@Steve I certainly wouldn't doubt your sources, I know you're well connected. I suppose I'm amazed that it hasn't come to light before that the WSR's SMS is so deficient that it can't even run trains, even if it wanted to. As someone else said, curious how as time goes by, more and more reasons why the WSR are unable to run trains come to light, above and beyond the commercial reasons the WSR has suck to for so long.

 

Alex, I have never said that the WSR's SMS is deficient in any way. A fundamental of the SMS is that you say what you will do. The other fundamental is that you will do what you say. If you are unable to put it into practice for any reason then it is quite right and proper that you take the decision not to run trains. That could be for any number of reasons.

 

My apologies for misrepresenting you Steve - would "unable to comply with its own SMS" be closer to the mark? Still rather worrying if so.

 

If you look back at my post, it was referring to comments by Michael that he considered the removal as 'a grubby little plot' His quote also seems to imply that he was unhappy about the whole situation, but that could just be my interpretation.

Based on recent events the current board may not be 'the only show in town' (not quite sure why you needed to SHOUT that). I don't know your opinion of them but I fear you will struggle to find much (if any) support for the board on here.

Keith